<"J'^f,.,!^^>'*'M^" 


McCLURE'S    MAGAZINE 


VOL.    XXVIll 


APRIL    1907 


No.    6 


THE    CITY    OF    CHICAGO 

A     STUDY     OF    THE    GREAT     IMMORALITIES 

BY 
GEORGE    KIBBE    TURNER 

AUTHOR       OF       ''GALVESTON;       A       BUSINESS      CORPORATION,''       ETC. 


ILLUSTRAIED       WI 


ORTRAITS      AND      VIEWS 


It  is  certain  that  there  is  an  immense  amount  of  remediable  misery  among  us.  Unless 
this  is  eflfectually  dealt  with,  the  hordes  of  vice  and  pauperism  will  destroy  modern  civili- 
zation as  effectually  as  uncivilized  tribes  of  another  kind  destroyed  the  great  social  organi- 
zations which  preceded  ours. —  Huxley. 


'URING  the  past  year 
three  great  American 
cities,  Chicago,  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  Pittsburg, 
have  been  swept  by 
"waves  of  crime,"  so- 
called, —  sudden  and  un- 
explained outbursts  of  criminal  violence. 
Women  have  been  beaten  down,  men  mur- 
dered, even  street-cars  robbed  by  highway- 
men on  the  thoroughfares,  with  all  the  non- 
chalance of  the  wild  and  vacant  frontier. 
This  thing  is  not  new;  in  some  cities  it  is 
constantly  recurring, —  so  constantly  that 
it  is  questionable  whether  these  "waves  of 
crime"  are  not  ordinary  conditions,  empha- 
sized by  chance  and  the  special  attention 
of  the  daily  press.  Why  do  these  conditions 
exist  ?  What  forces  are  there,  hidden  in 
American  cities,  which  are  dragging  them, 
according  to  the  record  of  their  own  press, 
into  a  state  of  semi-barbarism  ? 

Chicago,  in  the  mind  of  the  country,  stands 
preeminently  notorious  for  violent  crime. 
It  is  the  second  city  on  the  continent;  it  is, 


all  things  considered,  perhaps  the  most 
typically  American  of  our  cities;  it  is  in- 
timately known  by  millions;  and  its  press 
is  especially  active  and  alert  in  the  discussion 
of  local  affairs.  The  reputation  of  Chicago 
for  crime  has  consequently  fastened  itself 
upon  the  imagination  of  the  United  States 
as  that  of  no  other  city  has  done.  It  is 
the  current  conventional  belief  that  the 
criminal  is  loose  upon  its  streets,  that  the 
thug  and  hold-up  man  go  patroling  them  by 
night. 

Take  Chicago,  then,  not  because  it  is  worse 
than  or  different  from  other  cities  of  Am- 
erica, but,  on  the  contrary,  because  it  is 
so  typical,  and  because  it  is  so  well  known. 
Why  have  the  primary  basic  guarantees  of 
civilization  broken  down  in  Chicago?  Why 
has  that  city,  year  after  year,  such  a  flood 
of  violent  and  adventurous  crime?  The 
answer  can  be  simple  and  straightforward  : 
Because  of  the  tremendous  and  elaborate 
organization  —  financial  and  political  —  for 
creating  and  attracting  and  protecting  the 
criminal  in  Chicago. 


Copyright,   igoy,   by    The  S.  S.   McC/ui,-  Co.     ^411  r:!;bts  reserved 


''75 


576 


THE     CI  r  Y    O  F    C  \l  I  C  A  G  O 


Tlie  Git'jt  Business  of  Dissipiitioii 

The  criminal  is  a  savage,  mnhing  more 
nor  less.  Civilization  builds  up  painfully 
our  definite,  orderly  rules  of  life, —  work, 
marriage,  the  constant  restraint  of  the  gross 
and  vit)lent  impulses  of  appetite.  The  crim- 
inal simplv  discards  these  laws  and  slides 
back  again  along  the  way  we  came  up  —  in- 
to license,  idleness,  thieving,  and  violence. 
He  merely  lapses  back  into  savagery.  To 
understand  the  matter  of  crime  in  great 
cities,  the  first  step  is  to  measure  the  posi- 
tive forces  working  continually  to  produce 
savagery  there.  These  forces  are  to-day, 
as  they  always  have  been,  greater  than  can 
easily  be  imagined. 

The  City  —  from  scarlet  Babylon  to  smoky 
Chicago  —  has  always  been  the  great  market- 
place of  dissipation.  In  the  jungle  you  would 
call  this  thing  savagery.  In  the  city  there  is 
a  new  side  to  it.  The  dweller  of  the  city, 
—  true  to  the  instincts  of  city  life, —  has 
made  it  a  financial  transaction.  He  has 
found  it  a  great  source  of  gain,  of  easy  money. 
There  has  grow^n  up,  therefore,  a  double  mo- 
tive in  promoting  it, — •  the  demand  for  the 
thing  itself,  and  the  stimulus  of  the  great 


profit  in  proxiding  it.  ^'ou  may  call  the  sale 
of  dissipation  in  the  city,  savagery  by  retail. 
Ethically  considered,  this  thing  is  hideous  be- 
}'ond  belief ;  socially  considered,  it  is  suicidal. 
But  to  be  understood  and  followed  through 
intelligently,  it  must  first  be  considered 
neither  ethically  nor  socially.  Its  methods 
and  moti\es  are  the  methods  and  motives  of 
pure  business  and  must  be  considered  as 
such.  There  is  no  other  way.  That  is  what 
I  must  recognise  in  describing  conditions  in 
Chicago.  I  must  talk  cold  business,  as  the  say- 
ing goes.  No  emotion,  no  squeamishness,  not 
even  sympathy;  simply  a  statement  of  fact. 

$100,000,000  a  Year  for  Alcoholic  Liquor 
The  sale  of  dissipation  is  not  only  a  great 
business  ;  it  is  among  the  few  greatest  busi- 
nesses in  Chicago.     The  leading  branch  of  it 

—  as  you  would  naturally  expect  of  the  sav- 
age  European  stock  from  which  we  sprang 

—  is  the  sale  of  alcoholic  liquor.  In  the  year 
1906  the  receipts  in  the  retail  liquor  trade  in 
Chicago  were  over  $100,000,000  ;  they  were 
probably  about  $  1 1 5,000,000.  1  here  was  one 
retail  interest  greater  than  this.  The  sellers 
of  food, — grocers  and  meat  men, —  had  gross 
receipts  of,  perhaps,  double   these   figures. 


THE      RAGGED      LINE      OF      WHISKY      ROW 

A  few  of  the  forty-eight  saloons  that  huddle  around  the  rear  entrance  of   the  stock-yards 
on  Ashland  Avenue 


/: 


ALDEUMAN       "  H  I  N  K  Y  -  D I N K     S  GREAT      TRAMPS         SALOON 

The  cheap  lodging-house  district  and  its  forest  of  signs  ;  a  characteristic  dehvery  of  beer 
to  the  "  Workingman's  Exchange  " 


At  the  same  time,  the  liquor  interests  are 
vastly  more  extended  in  Chicago  than  any 
other.  There  are  7,300  licensed  liquor  sel- 
lers in  Chicago,  and  in  addition  about  a  thous- 
and places  where  liquor  is  sold  illegally.  The 
only  business  which  approaches  this  in  num- 
ber of  establishments,  according  to  the  Chi- 
cago directory,  is  the  grocery  trade,  which 
has  about  5,200.  The  city  spends  at  least 
half  as  much  for  what  it  drinks  as  for  what 
it  eats  —  not  counting  the  cost  of  the  cooking 
and  serving  of  food. 

The  great  central  power  in  the  liquor 
business  in  America  is  the  brewery.  In  the 
past  thirty-five  years,  the  per  capita  con- 
sumption of  spirituous  liquor  in  the  United 
States  has  increased  not  at  all.  The  per 
capita  consumption  of  malt  liquor  has 
trebled.  This  increase  has  come,  partly 
because  of  the  demand  for  a  milder  drink, 
but  largely  also  because  of  another  fact  :  — 
because  the  breweries  own  or  control  the 
great  majority  of  the  saloons  of  American 
cities.  They  have  a  distinct  policy  : — If  there 
are  not  as  many  saloons  as   there  can  be. 


supply  them.  This  is  what  has  been  done 
in  Chicago.  Fully  ninety  per  cent  of  the 
Chicago  saloons  are  under  some  obligation 
to  the  brewery  ;  with  at  least  eighty  per 
cent,  this  obligation  is  a  serious  one. 

The  business  of  the  brewery  is  to  sell 
beer.  There  are  excellent  men  in  the  brew- 
ing trade,  but  that  fact  has  never  interfered 
with  the  carrying  out  of  the  development  of 
the  industry  to  its  utmost  limit.  It  could 
not  be  allowed  to  do  so.  The  brewery,  under 
present  conditions  in  Chicago,  must  sell  beer 
at  all  cost,  or  promptly  die.  This  is  because 
the  brewing  business  has  been  over-capital- 
ized and  overbuilt  there  for  at  least  ten 
years.  There  has  been  furious  competition 
—  "beer-wars,"  which  have  left  financial 
scars  that  are  not  yet  and  probably  never 
will  be  entirely  obliterated.  And  at  the  pres- 
ent time  a  full  third  of  the  capital  invested 
in  the  forty  companies  and  fifty  plants  is  not 
earning  dividends.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, the  breweries  of  Chicago  can  have 
but  one  aim  —  to  fill  Chicago  with  beer  to  the 
point  of  saturation. 

577 


T  H  F.    CATY    OF    CHIC  A  G  O 


The'  Satinalion  of  a  Liquor  Miiihct 

Each  brewer  disposes  of  his  product  by 
contracting  with  special  saloon-keepers  to 
sell  his  beer  and  no  other.  The  more  sa- 
loons he  has,  the  better.  Up  to  a  year  ago, 
there  was  absolutely  no  legal  hiiulrance  to 
the  multiplica- 
tion of  saloons. 
The  brewers  em- 
p 1 o  y  special 
agents  to  watch 
continually 
evcrv  nook  and 
cranny  in  Chi- 
cago where  it 
may  be  possible 
to  pour  in  a 
little  more  beer. 
If  a  rival  brew- 
ery's saloon- 
keeper is  doing 
well,  his  best 
bartender  is 
ravished  from 
him  and  set  up 
in  business 
alongside.  If  a 
new  colony  of 
foreigners  a  p  - 
pears,  some  com- 
patriot is  set  at 
once  to  s  e  1 1  i  n  g 
them  liquor. 
Italians,  Greeks, 
Lithuani  ans, 
Poles,  —  all  the 
rough  and  hairy 
tribes  which 
have  been  drawn  into  Chicago, —  have  their 
trade  exploited  to  the  utmost.  Up  to 
last  year,  no  man  with  two  hundred  dollars, 
who  was  not  subject  to  arrest  on  sight, 
need  go  without  a  saloon  in  Chicago; 
nor,  for  that  matter,  need  he  now.  The 
machinery  is  constantly  waiting  for  him. 
With  that  two  hundred  dollars  as  a  margin, 
the  brewery  sorts  him  out  a  set  from  its 
stock  of  saloon  fixtures,  pays  his  rent,  pays 
his  license,  and  supplies  him  with  beer.  He 
pays  for  everything  in  an  extra  price  on  each 
barrel  of  beer.  The  other  supplies  of  his 
saloon, —  liquor  and  cigars, —  are  bought  out 
of  his  two  hundred  dollars  cash  capital. 

Under  this  system  of  forcing,  Chicago  has 
four  times  as  many  saloons  as  it  should  have, 
from   any  standpoint  whatever,  except,  of 


K  E  N  N  A 


The  wise  and  silent  head  of  the  First  Ward 
organization 


coursi-,  the  brewers'  and  the  wholesalers'. 
A  new  license  law,  passed  last  year,  now 
limits  the  number  to  one  in  every  five  hun- 
dred people;  but  it  will  be  years  before  that 
law  will  have  any  appreciable  effect.  There 
is  now  one  retail  liquor  dealer  to  every  two 
huiulred  and  eight \-fi\e  people,  disregarding, 
of  course,  the 
one  thousand 
unlicensed  deal- 
ers. In  the  labor- 
ing wards  the 
licensed  saloons 
run  as  many 
as  one  to  every 
one  hundred  and 
fifty.  Take  the 
stock-yards. 
Around  that 
long  and  dismal 
stockade,  at 
every  hole  from 
which  a  hu- 
man being  can 
emerge,  a  shop 
or  group  of  shops 
sits  waiting.  At 
the  main  en- 
trance they  lie 
massed  in  bat- 
teries. At  the 
rear,  —  on  Ash- 
land Avenue, — 
"Whisky  Row!" 
To  the  north, 
the  vileness  of 
Bubbly  Creek; 
to  the  east,  the 
bare,  gaunt, 
high-shouldcrcd  buildings  of  the  yard;  to 
the  west  and  south,  scattering,  shabby 
dwellings.  Just  forty-eight  saloons  —  and 
two  that  have  recently  died  —  housed  in 
opposing  rows  of  staggering  wooden  build- 
ings, down  a  distance  across  which  a  strong 
man  could  throw  a  stone;  located  nowhere  in 
particular  in  space,  except  due  east  of  that 
ugly  little  hole  in  the  stockade  from  which 
the  men  run  out  to  drink  in  their  brief  half- 
hour's  nooning. 

The  Chicago  market  is  thoroughly  satu- 
rated with  beer,  and  incidentally  with  other 
liquor.  Reckoning  it  out  by  population, 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  Chicago 
drank,  in  1906,  two  and  one-quarter  barrels 
of  beer,  —  that  is,  seventy  gallons, —  three 
and  one-half  times  the  average  consumption 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


579 


in  the  United  States.  Each  also  drank 
about  four  gallons  of  spirituous  liquor, —  two 
and  two-thirds  times  the  average.  The  main 
object  of  the  brewing  business  is  well- 
. fulfilled;  the  consumers  of  Chicago  ex- 
pended not  less  than  $55,000,000  for  beer 
in  IQ06. 

Now,  if  the 
competition  is 
red-handed 
among  the  brew- 
eries, it  is  simp- 
ly  ravenous 
among  the 
saloon-keepers. 
There  is  a  popu- 
lar fallacy  that 
there  is  great 
profit  in  the  re- 
tail saloon  busi- 
ness. The  sa- 
loon-keepers 
themselves  be- 
lieve this  when 
they  go  into  it. 
The  hope  of 
easy  money  and 
easy  life  is 
the  motive 
which  brings 
men  into  this 
trade.  Now,  this 
is  in  reality  the 
kind  of  business 
itis: — Inthelean 
years  between 
1897  and  1901, 
one-third  of  the 
license-holders 

in  Chicago  gave  up  their  licenses  every  year 
and  were  replaced  by  other  licensees.  In 
other  words,  one-third  of  the  saloons  of 
Chicago  failed  every  year.  In  the  Seven- 
teenth Ward  —  a  territory  of  working  folk 
—  a  special  study  of  the  liquor  business  was 
made  a  year  ago.  In  one  block  and  a  half, 
it  was  shown,  eighteen  saloons  had  been 
started  and  had  died  in  the  course  of  eigh- 
teen months.  Of  the  saloon-keepers  of  Chi- 
cago, less  than  ten  per  cent  have  resources 
enough  to  entitle  them  to  any  rating  by  a 
commercial  agency.  The  pressure  of  the 
brewery  to  sell  beer  almost  crushes  the  re- 
tailer out  of  existence. 

All  this  means  one  thing  —  a  premium  on 
the  irregular  and  criminal  saloon-keeper. 
The  patronage  of  a  saloon  is  a  very  fickle 


Former  Turkish^bath  rubber;  now  aldennan,  poet, 
financier,  and  active  manager  of  Ward  One 


and  elusive  thing.  A  place  is  popular,  or  it 
is  nothing.  Consequently,  the  need  of  draw- 
ing and  holding  a  good  trade  is  imperative. 
There  are  two  general  business  methods  of 
attracting  it:  By  giving  unusually  large 
measures  and  big  bonuses  of  free  lunch  ;  or 
by  carrying  illegitimate  and  illegal  side  lines. 
The  first,  gene- 
ra 1 1  y  speaking, 
does  not  leave 
large  margins  of 
profit;  the  sec- 
ond does.  A 
year  ago  the 
license  fee  was 
raised  in  Chicago 
from  five  hun- 
dred to  one 
thousand  dol- 
lars. It  was 
hoped  that  this 
Vv'ould  wipe  out 
the  criminal  sa- 
loon. It  did,  of 
course,  nothing 
of  the  sort.  The 
poor,  miserable 
little  dives  in  the 
working-man's 
ward,  each 
snatching  a  star- 
vation  living 
from  the  lips  of 
the  dwellers  of 
the  dozen  smoke- 
befouled  frame 
tenements  about 
it,  staggered 
down  —  a  few 
hundred  of  them  —  and  died.  The  man  with 
the  side-line  of  prostitution  and  gambling 
naturally  survived  and  had  the  benefit  cf 
the  others'  failure. 

So  much  for  the  great  legalized  branch  of 
the  sale  of  dissipation  in  Chicago.  The  net 
results  of  that  free  and  undisciplined  strugijlc 
have  been  two:  The  thorough  saturation 
of  Chicago  —  especially  of  the  tenement 
districts — with  alcoholic  liquor;  and  a  hi^^h 
and  successful  premium  on  the  criminal 
saloon. 

The  effect  of  the  latter  can  be  told  when 
the  sale  of  other  forms  of  dissipation  is 
considered.  The  effect  of  the  former  is  felt 
immediately  and  directly.  A  great  part  of 
the  crime  in  Chicago  is  committed  by  men 
under  the  influence  of  drink.     This  is  true 


TIIF     CITY     OF    CHICAGO 


A  population  of  luiiniivds  of  thousands  of 
nniLih  and  unrest  rained  male  laborers,  plied, 
with  all  possible  energy  and  inj^enuitN',  with 
alcoholic  liquor,  can  be  counted  on,  with  the 
certainty  of  a  chemical  experiment,  for  one 
reaction  — violent  and  fatal  crime.  There 
Would  be  crime  of  this  kind  from  such  a 
lioiuilation  under  any  circumstances.  ikit 
the  facilities  of  Chicago  double  and  treble  it. 
The  Iluropean  peasant,  suddenly  freed  from 
the  restraints  of  poverty  and  of  rigid  police 
authority,  and  the  vicious  negro  from  the 
countryside  of  the  South,  —  especially  the 
latter, —  furnish  an  alarming  volume  of  sav- 
age crime,  first  confined  to  their  own  races, 
and  later, —  as  they  appreciate  the  lack  of 
adequate  protection,  —  extended  to  society 
at  large.  None  of  these  folk,  perhaps,  have 
progressed  far  along  the  way  of  civilization; 
but  under  the  exploitation  in  Chicago  they 
slip  back  into  a  form  of  city  savagery 
compared  to  which  their  previous  history 
shows  a  peaceful  and  well-ordered  existence. 
Their  children  are  as  quickly  and  surely 
rotted  as  themselves  by  the  influence  of  the 
saloon  upon  the  neighborhood  of  their  homes. 

$20,000,000  a   Year  for  Prostitiilion 

And  now  a  short  sketch  of  the  second  great 
peculiarly  favorable  to  this  class  of  crime,     business  of  dissipation, —  prostitution.  The 


Ex-convict  antl  now  precinct  captain  of  Ward  One 
in  any  city.     But  conditions  in  Chicago  are 


"LOST      NERVES  IN      A      C  H  E  .\  P      LODGING-HOUSE      OFFICE 

These  men  furnish  the  greater  part  of   the  big  purchased   majorities  of  Wards  One  and  Eighteen 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


58. 


gross  revenues  from  this  business  in  Chicago, 
in  1906,  were  $20,000,000  —  and  probably 
more.  There  are  at  least  ten  thousand 
professional  prostitutes.  Average  annual 
receipts  of  two  thousand  dollars  each  are 
brought  in  by  these  women.  They  do  not 
themselves,  however,  have  the  benefit  of 
this  revenue.  Much  of  it  is  never  received 
by  them.  They  are,  in  fact,  exploited  by 
large  business  interests. 

There  are  four  large  interests  which  are 
concerned  in  the  exploitation  of  prostitution. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  criminal  hotels,  the 
second  is  the  houses  of  ill-fame,  the  third 
the  cheap  dance-halls  and  saloons,  and  the 
fourth  the  men  —  largely  Russian  Jews  — 
who  deal  in  women  for  the  trade.  There 
are  large  indirect  interests, —  such  as,  for 
instance,  the  leasing  or  subletting  of  tene- 
ments to  the  business,  an  operation  which 
yields  enormous  percentages  of  profit, — 
but  these  are  the  four  principal  direct  in- 
terests in  the  trade. 

The  hotels  constitute  probably  the  larg- 
est of  these.  There  are  two  hundred  and 
ninety-two  of  these  houses  known  and  record- 
ed in  Chicago, — with  a  capacity  of  ten  thous- 
and rooms.  Twenty-oneof  them  contain  each 
one  hundred  rooms  or  over;  the  largest  has 
two  hundred  and  fifty.  The  gross  receipts  of 
these  enterprises  cannot  be  less  than  four 
million  dollars  a  year;  they  are  probably 
five  million.  The  total  amount  expend- 
ed there  cannot  be  less  than  eight  mil- 
lion dollars;  it  is  probably  ten  million. 
These  places  have  been  extremely  profit- 
able, because  their  expenses  are  low,  and 
their  patronage  is  large.  At  present  they 
are  not  so  good  an  investment  as  form- 
erly, because  the  city  authorities  —  urged 
to  action  by  a  desperate  woman's  throwing 
herself  out  of  an  upper  story  window  —  have 
passed  a  hotel  license  ordinance,  which  is 
intended  to  do  away  with  this  business.  The 
largest  of  the  hotels,  some  of  which  have  for 
some  time  pooled  their  legal  and  political 
interests  in  the  hands  of  a  manager,  are  now 
fighting  this  ordinance  as  unconstitutional. 
Under  ordinary  conditions,  —  that  is, 
when  there  is  no  particular  agitation  against 
them  —  there  are  at  least  three  hundred 
and  fifty  good-sized  houses  of  prostitution  in 
Chicago.  There  are  in  all  more  than  four 
thousand  women  in  these.  The  annual  gross 
receipts  are  not  less  than  eight  million  dollars; 
they  are  more  likely  over  ten  million.  These 
houses    are   disposed    throughout    the  city 


according  to  the  demand,  which  is  affected  to 
some  extent  by  public  opinion. 

The  profits  of  these  houses  are,  of  course, 
very  large  and  quick.  Much  of  the  money 
made  here  is  dissipated,  yet  there  are  at 
least  half  a  dozen  persons  now  interested  in 
this  business  who  are  credited  with  fortunes 
running  into  the  hundreds  of  thousands. 
Their  profits  are  not  only  from  their  shares 
in  the  women's  wages,  but  from  excessive 
prices  for  liquor.  They  also  secure  large 
returns  from  furnishing  clothing  and  other 
necessities  of  life  to  their  employees,  at  prices 
ranging  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred 
per  cent  higher  than  the  usual  retail  price. 
By  this  system  the  wages  of  the  women  are 
largely  secured  by  the  proprietors  of  the 
establishments.  The  plan  is  not  difl'erent  in 
principle  from  the  familiar  "company  store" 
system  of  the  manufacturing  and  mining  dis- 
trict. It  is  a  first  rule  of  the  business,  as 
generally  conducted,  to  keep  the  employees 
continuously  in  debt,  so  that  they  are  unable 
to  leave  the  establishments  unless  the  pro- 
prietors desire  it. 

The  business  of  the  small  places,  the  flats, 
cannot  be  estimated,  but  it  is  very  large  and 
is  growing  constantly,  especially  since  the 
official  attacks  which  have  frightened  away 
custom  from  the  criminal  hotels.  There  are 
certainly  not  less  than  two  thousand  women 
in  these  flats,  and  annualexpenditures  are  cer- 
tainly not  less  than  four  million  dollars.  In 
some  sections  of  the  city  there  are  scores  of 
these  small  places.  One  building  of  over  seven- 
ty apartments  is  said  to  cont-ain  nothing  else. 

The  Dealers  in  IVoinen 

These  places  and  the  hotels  cater  to  the 
demand  for  ruining  young  girls  —  especially 
the  low-paid  employees  of  department  stores 
and  factories,  which  furnish  the  majority  of 
the  English-speaking  women  in  the  profes- 
sion in  Chicago.  The  dance-halls  and  irreg- 
ular saloons  also  take  a  part  of  the  profit 
from  this  source.  The  direct  business  of 
supplying  women  to  the  trade,  while  not  so 
large  as  these  others,  is  also  profitable.  Some 
of  the  more  enterprising  of  the  keepers  of  the 
regular  houses  of  ill-fame  have  private  ar- 
rangements with  men,  who  ruin  young  girls 
for  their  use.  Most  of  the  young  women 
who  come  into  the  business  in  this  way  do 
so  before  reaching  the  age  of  nineteen. 

The  largest  regular  business  in  furnishing 
women,  however,  is  done  by  a  company  of 
men,  largely  composed  of  Russian  Jews,  who 


582 

supply  women  of  that  nationality  to  the 
trade.  These  men  have  a  sort  of  loosely 
organized  association  extending  through  the 
large  cities  of  the  country,  their  chief  centers 
being  New  ^'ork,  Boston,  Chicago,  and  New 
Orleans,  in  Chicago  they  now  furnish  the 
great  majority  of  the  prostitutes  in  the  cheap- 
er district  of  the  West  Side  Levee,  their 
women  having  driven  out  the  English-speak- 
ing women  in  the  last  ten  years.  From  the 
best  returns  available,  there  are  some  ten  or 
a  dozen  women  offered  for  sale  at  the  houses 
of  prostitution  in  the  Eighteenth  Ward  every 
week.  The  price  paid  is  about  fifty  dollars 
a  head.  In  some  exceptional  cases  seventy- 
five  dollars  has  been  given.  This  money, 
paid  over  to  the  agent,  is  charged  up  to  the 
debt  of  the  woman  to  the  house.  She  pays, 
that  is,  for  her  own  sale.  In  addition,  she 
gives  over  a  large  share  of  her  earnings  to 
the  man  who  olaces  her. 

Cocaine:  A  Highly  Profitable  Drug 
There  is  a  minor  business,  financially 
speaking,  which  is  closely  connected  with 
prostitution:  this  is  the  selling  of  cocaine. 
The  average  life  of  a  woman  in  the  business 
of  prostitution  ranges  from  five  to  ten  years. 
She  is,  of  course,  continually  drinking  alco- 
holic stimulants.  Later,  however,  these  do 
not  satisfy  the  women,  and  toward  the  end 
of  their  career  they  acquire  some  drug  habit. 
Formerly  they  depended  largely  on  mor- 
phine. During  the  past  ten  years,  however, 
cocaine  has  come  into  general  use.  This 
drug  is  very  attractive  to  persons  who  are 
unfortunate  or  despondent.  It  produces  an 
extravagant  feeling  of  buoyancy  and  well- 
being.  Although  taken  by  many  persons 
throughout  the  country,  especially  by  ne- 
groes, it  is  now  recognized  generally  to  be 
the  special  drug  of  the  prostitute.  The  chief 
markets  for  it  in  Chicago  follow  very  closely 
the  markets  of  prostitution.  In  its  effect  this 
is  much  quicker  than  any  other  drug  habit, 
through  its  action  upon  the  brain  cells.  After 
a  time  the  taker  is  subject  to  various  acute 
hallucinations  —  the  most  characteristic  of 
which  is  the  belief  that  worms  are  crawling 
just  underneath  the  skin.  The  cocaine-taker 
in  this  condition  often  slashes  his  skin 
with  a  knife  in  the  attempt  to  get  them  out. 
Death  is  likely  to  come  within  two  or  three 
years  from  the  unrestricted  use  of  the  drug, 
although  some  individuals  survive  for  a  long 
time.  It  is  largely  a  question  of  tempera- 
ment. 


THE     C  1  T  ^'     OF    CHI  C  A  G  O 


The  profit  on  the  retail  sale  of  cocaine  is 
very  large,  running  as  high  as  three  or  four 
hundred  per  cent,  as  the  drug  is  usually 
heavily  adulterated  with  acetanilid.  There 
have  always  been,  consequently,  a  number 
of  drug  stores  and  some  saloons  at  which  it 
could  be  obtained  by  its  users.  Various 
estimates  of  the  number  of  the  takers  of 
this    drug    in    Chicago    have    been    made, 

—  many  of  them  extravagant.  The  num- 
ber of  confirmed  users  in  the  city  prob- 
ably does  not  exceed  seven  thousand.  It 
is  more  likely  about  five  thousand.  A  great 
proportion  of  these  are  prostitutes.  At  the 
same  time,  the  drug  is  exceedingly  con- 
venient to  take,  the  crushed  crystal  or  flake 

—  according  to  the  common  custom  —  being 
merely  snuffed  up  from  the  back  of  the  hand; 
and  on  this  account  its  use  spreads  easily. 
Boys,  especially  messengers  and  newsboys, 
are  apt  to  experiment  with  it,  and  many 
young  men  in  the  early  twenties  acquire  the 
habit.  Deprived  of  their  drug,  these  men 
often  resort  to  petty  crime  and  sometimes 
to  violent  crime  to  secure  means  to  get  it. 
The  drug  fiends  are  usually  ghastly  in  appear- 
ance; a  grim  sight  is  afforded  by  the  pro- 
cession of  haggard  women  who  appear  in  the 
gray  light  of  the  early  morning  to  secure  the 
drug  from  the  big  dealers  on  the  West  Side 
Levee. 

The  chastity  of  woman  is  at  the  founda- 
tion of  Anglo-Saxon  society.  Our  laws  are 
based  upon  it,  and  the  finest  and  most  bind- 
ing of  our  social  relations.  Nothing  could 
oe  more  menacing  to  a  civilization  than  the 
sale  of  this  as  a  commodity.  To  the  average 
individual  woman  concerned,  it  means  the 
expectation  of  death  under  ten  years;  to 
practically  all  the  longer  survivors  a  villain- 
ous and  hideous  after-life.  There  is  a  great 
profit  in  this  business,  however.  Chi- 
cago has  it  organized — from  the  supplying  of 
young  girls  to  the  drugging  of  the  older  and 
less  salable  women  out  of  existence  — with 
all  the  nicety  of  modern  industry.  As  in  the 
stock-yards,  not  one  shred  of  flesh  is  wasted. 

$15,000,000  a  Year  for  Gambling 

The  third  large  business  of  dissipation  in 
Chicago  is  gambling.  In  an  average  year  — 
1906,  for  example,  —  its  gross  receipts  cannot 
be  less  than  fifteen  million  dollars.  Policy 
shops,  the  race-track,  and  open  pool-rooms 
and  gambling-houses  have  been  quite  gener- 
ally closed  out  in  Chicago  during  the  past 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


583 


few  years.  The  largest  gambling  interest 
is  now  the  making  of  "handbooks"  on  the 
horse  races.  The  gross  receipts  from  this 
must  be  above  twelve  million  dollars  a  year. 
During  the  latter  part  of  1906,  when  the 
business  was  running  with  comparative 
freedom,  there  were  at  least  five  hundred 
agents  of  "handbook"  systems  in  Chicago. 
These  systems  are  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
favored  gamblers  or  groups  of  gamblers, 
who  have  their  arrangements  so  nicely 
made  that  they  can  divide  the  territory 
of  the  city  between  them  ;  and  no  new- 
comer can  enter  the  field  without  their  con- 
sent. If  he  does,  he  is  raided  by  the  police. 
Besides  these  "handbook  men"  there  is  a 
floating  pool-room  —  the  steamer,  "City  of 
Traverse,"  owned  by  a  large  number  of  pro- 
fessional gamblers  —  which  is  supposed  to 
leave  South  Chicago  and  run  out  of  the  city 
limits  into  Lake  Michigan,  although,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  does  not  always  do  so. 

In  addition  to  the  receipts  from  this  bet- 
ting on  the  horse  races,  there  was  in  1906  at 
least  two  million  dollars  net  revenue  from 
general  gambling  in  Chicago.  General  open 
gambling  is  not  in  evidence,  but  there  are 
large  games,  in  a  few  specially  favored  places, 
and  many  smaller  ones,  open  to  those  who 
have  inside  information,  throughout  the  city. 
Altogether,  the  gambling  interests  in  1906 
took  at  least  seven  million  dollars  in  gross 
profits  out  of  the  Chicago  public;  doubtless 
the  amount  was  considerably  larger. 

Dissipation  and  Food  Supplies 

The  dealers  in  dissipation  in  Chicago, 
then,  have  a  total  revenue  of  at  least  one 
hundred  and  thirty-five  million  dollars  a 
year, —  that  is,  receipts  at  least  two-thirds  as 
large  as  those  of  the  retail  grocers  and  meat 
men.  There  are  more  than  forty  thousand 
persons  directly  employed  by  them.  This  is 
one  of  the  few  greatest  businesses  of  the 
city,  but  beyond  that  it  bears  a  relation  to 
society  and  government  which  nothing  else 
can  bear.  Every  cent  of  that  great  sum  of 
money  is  taken  in,  and  every  action  of  that 
great  company  of  proprietors  and  employees 
takes  place  either  under  the  strict  regulation 
of  law,  or  in  direct  defiance  of  it. 

The  business  can  be  divided  into  two  gen- 
eral classes.  In  the  first,  the  dealers  —  includ- 
ing the  brewers,  the  wholesale  liquor  dealers, 
and  the  great  majority  of  the  saloon-keepers 
—  have  no  direct  interest  in  breaking  the  law, 
although  they  all  may  profit  indirectly,  and 


some  of  them  do  profit  to  a  great  extent,  be- 
cause of  the  breaking  of  the  law  by  others. 
But  the  first  interest  of  this  class  is  to  resist 
the  constant  attacks  of  its  enemies  looking 
toward  the  further  restriction  of  its  trade. 
It  must,  therefore,  be  continually  in  politics. 
Its  political  alliances  are  naturally  with  the 
other  interests  of  dissipation.  The  members 
of  the  second  class, —  the  dealers  in  prostitu- 
tion and  gambling,  and  the  criminal  saloon- 
keepers,—  must  violate  the  law  to  exist. 
They  consequently  have  made  careful  busi- 
ness arrangements  to  break  the  law.  To  do 
this,  they  also  must  go  into  politics. 

The  gross  receipts  of  this  illegal  class  of 
business  are  some  forty-five  million  dollars  a 
year.  About  four-fifths  of  this —  thirty-five 
million  dollars  —  is  concentrated  in  the 
chief  markets  of  dissipation  near  the  center 
of  the  city — for  the  sale  of  dissipation,  in 
any  city,  merely  follows  the  natural  laws 
of  trade  and  locates  where  the  demand  is, 
near  the  large  centers  of  population.  In 
two  downtown  wards  of  Chicago, —  the 
First  and  the  Eighteenth  — •  are  situated 
five-sixths  of  the  criminal  saloons  and  of 
the  dealers  in  prostitution,  and  at  least 
two-thirds  of  the  gambling  interests.  The 
owners  of  these  enterprises  turn  over  the 
organization  of  their  political  business  to 
the  natural  agent  —  the  ward  boss. 

The  business  of  the  political  boss  has  not 
always  been  clearly  understood.  The  boss 
is  simply  a  middle^man.  He  buys  votes  and 
sells  privileges.  He  pays  for  his  votes  either 
in  cash  or  in  privileges;  he  sells  his  privileges 
either  for  cash  or  its  equivalent,  or  for  votes. 
The  difference  between  his  income  and  outgo 
of  money  is,  of  course,  his  personal  profit. 
The  direction  of  the  political  business  of 
concerns  with  a  gross  annual  income  of  thirty- 
five  million  dollars  and  the  peculiar  necessities 
of  the  sellers  of  vice,  naturally  offers  unusual 
financial  opportunities  to  the  Ward  Boss.  It 
is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  bosses  of 
Wards  One  and  Eighteen  in  Chicago  are  re- 
markable figures  and  wealthy  men. 

'  'Hinhy  -  Dink ' '  and  '  'Bath  -  House  John ' ' 
Considering  both  worlds, —  the  upper  and 
the  under, —  the  bosses  of  the  First  Ward  in 
Chicago  are  the  most  widely  known  men  in 
political  life,  which  that  city  has  ever  pro- 
duced. "Hinky-Dink"  (Michael  Kenna),the 
older,  ex-bootblack  and  newsboy,  is  the 
keeper  of  the  greatest  tramps'  saloon  on  the 
continent.    He  is  a  wise,  silent,  dapper  little 


584 

man  of  about  fifty;  straight  as  a  die  in  his  per- 
sonal relations;  a  virtuoso  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. When  he  speaks  in  anger,  his  words 
leave  scars.  "Bath-house  John"  (John  J. 
Coughlin)  —  a  large,  pompous,  poetic  temper- 
ament—  rose  from  the  work  of  a  rubber  in  a 
Turkish  bath-house  to  his  present  occupation 
as  insurance  broker  and  active  ward  boss. 
He  dresses  like  a  bartender's  dream  of  Beau 
Brummel,  a  bottle-green  dress  suit  being 
his  highest  sartorial  achievement;  he  also 
hires  a  man  to  write  poetry  for  him,  to  ap- 
pear under  his  name.  The  rulers  of  the 
Eighteenth  Ward  have  been  less  successful. 
John  J.  Brennan,  the  older, —  a  gruff,  husky, 
generous  old  saloon-keeper,  adored  by  his 
ward, —  has,  in  fact,  served  a  term  in  the 
House  of  Correction  for  the  clumsy  buying 
of  votes.  His  health  has  failed  since  that 
experience.  He  has  now  the  appearance 
of  a  broken-down  prize-fighter.  The  junior 
boss,  i\l.  C.  Conlon,  was  formerly  a  keeper  of 
an  unsavory  saloon  near  the  Union  Station 
and  is  now  interested  as  a  silent  partner  in 
various  enterprises  for  the  sale  of  dissipation. 
These  four  men  have  the  absolute  power 
of  political  dictators  in  Wards  One  and 
Eighteen;  they  are  aldermen  and  ward 
heads  of  the  Democratic  party;  they  select 
the  political  machinery  of  the  ward  for 
their  party  and  control  it  in  the  other. 
As  political  agents  of  the  business  interests 
of  dissipation,  they  have  unlimited  funds. 
They  operate  throughout  the  year  a  finely, 
organized  business  for  the  handling  of  votes. 
The  main  aims  of  this  business  are  two: 
first,  t'le  control  of  the  ward;  second,  and 
vastly  more  important,  the  production  of  a 
Democratic  majority  so  large  that  they  can 
secure  from  the  city  administration  the  right 
for  the  business  interests  they  represent  to 
break  the  law  in  their  wards. 

The  Business  of  Ward  Politics 

The  business  organization  for  getting 
votes  is  the  same  in  principle  in  both  wards. 
But  it  is  more  clean-cut  in  the  First.  The 
organization  of  this  is,  in  fact,  so  admirable 
of  its  kind  that  it  is  worth  describing  as  a 
fine  illustration  of  the  organization  of  the 
wards  of  dissipation,  not  only  in  Chicago, 
but  throughout  tne  country.  There  are 
thirty-four  captains  of  voting  precincts  in 
this  ward.  Half  of  these  are  proprietors  of 
questionable  saloons,  at  least  six  are  dealers 
in  prostitution;  the  majority  of  the  re- 
mainder aie  "job-holders"  under  the  city 


THE     CITY     OF    C  H  1  C  .^  G  O 


administration.  In  addition,  there  are,  of 
course,  specialists  to  handle  special  votes. 
One  or  two  captains  are  connected  with 
tramps'  lodging-houses.  Two  negro  gamb- 
lers, who  do  not  appear  on  the  official  list 
of  precinct  captains,  take  care  of  the  negro 
vote,  Italian  saloon-keepers,  one  of  them  an 
ex-convict,  handle  the  Italians.  Twoofthe 
most  important  of  the  precinct  captains 
are  former  professional  criminals,  who  are 
known  to  professional  thieves  and  burglars 
all  over  the  country. 

These  are  the  official  working  representa- 
tives of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  ward. 
Most  of  these  are  engaged  in  the  business  of 
dissipation.  But  every  one  in  this  business 
is  vitally  concerned  in  the  politics  of  the 
ward, —  every  one  down  to  the  last  man. 
For  instance.  There  was  a  candidate  run- 
ning not  long  ago  in  one  of  these  two  down- 
town wards.  One  afternoon  he  was  sent 
for  by  the  proprietor  of  a  well-known  saloon. 
A  delegation  of  sleek-looking  foreigners  met 
him  in  a  rear  room  of  this  man's  place. 
"How  do  you  stand  to  our  business  ?"  asked 
the  spokesman.  "  We  are  eighty-five  in  this 
ward,  and  we  control  five  votes  apiece, —  four 
hundred  and  twenty-five  votes."  "What  is 
your  business?"  said  the  young  candidate. 
They  were  the  professional  dealers  in  wom- 
en for  prostitution. 

The  buying  of  voters  begins,  of  course, 
with  registration.  But  before  that,  lodging- 
houses  must  send  in  to  the  election  board 
their  lists  of  guests,  to  show  who  is  eligible 
to  vote.  The  lodging-houses,  being  practic- 
ally all  in  the  political  machine,  send  in  the 
fullest  lists  possible.  The  largest  numbers 
are  given  by  the  tramps'  hotels.  Others 
are  listed  from  empty  buildings,  saloons, 
and  houses  of  prostitution.  One  precinct 
—  the  Fifteenth  in  Ward  One,  said  to  be 
the  largest  in  voters  and  the  smallest  in  area 
in  the  United  States, —  has  listed  as  high  as 
fifteen  hundred.  Last  fall  a  precinct  cap- 
tain listed  seventy-six  voters  from  his  large 
house  of  prostitution.  Only  one  voter  was 
finally  found  to  live  there. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  buyers  of 
votes  there  are  two  classes  of  voters  in 
Wards  One  and  Eighteen: — the  common 
"  town  bum  "  and  the  "  hobo,"  the  members 
of  the  great  body  of  the  "  lost  nerves,"  — 
the  poor,  docile  individuals,  softened  by 
dissipation,  who  are  good  for  one  or  two 
votes  apiece;  and  the  aggressive  and  courag- 
eous repeater,  who  is  willing  to  take  what 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


585 


the  under  world  knows  as  a  "  stir  chance" 
(penitentiary  chance).  These  latter  are 
generally  professional  criminals  of  some 
kind.  The  handling  of  each  of  these  two 
classes  is  along  entirely  distinct  lines. 

Rounding  Up  the  ' '  Lost  Nerves  ' ' 

The  vagrant  vote  is  secured  by  paying  its 
board  for  some  days  before  election  and  by 
giving  it  the  market  price  for  registering 
and  voting.  The  greatest  share  of  the 
purchased  vote  is  now  secured  from  this 
source,  because  there  is  very  little  danger 
in  this  kind  of  a  transaction.  Even  if  a 
precinct  captain  is  seen  paying  over  money, 
it  is  practically  impossible  to  prove  what 
that  money  is  paid  for.  The  one  risk  comes 
in  your  man  being  a  spy  or  a  traitor.  Every 
precaution  is  taken  to  insure  against  this. 
As  election  comes  on,  the  "  lost  nerves  " 
begin  to  stir  in  the  low  saloons  and  to  talk 
practical  politics.  In  other  words,  they 
begin  to  determine  whether  the  most  im- 
portant contest  is  to  take  place  in  the 
First  or  the  Eighteenth  Ward.  When  they 
decide  this,  they  take  up  their  residence  in 
.the  ward  where  the  most  money  is  to  be 
expended  and  get  in  touch  with  the  political 
machine.  They  are  then,  for  as  long  a 
time  as  they  can  arrange,  placed  in  the 
tramps'  lodging-houses  at  the  expense  of  the 
ward  management.  Besides  lodging,  they 
receive  an  allowance  of  perhaps  a  quarter  of 
a  dollar  a  day  for  food.  A  numbered  check, 
often,  is  pasted  to  thegreatbarof  iron  hitched 
to  the  room  key  of  the  lodging-house  to  insure 
its  return  to  the  hotel  desk.  This  check  is 
good  for  credit  in  cheap  eating-houses.  The 
prospective  voter  now  becomes  temporarily 
a  part  of  the  political  organization  and  helps 
to  protect  its  interests.  The  chief  concern 
is  to  guard  against  the  suspicious  outsider. 
For  this  purpose  "The  Secret  Order  of 
Hoboes,"  an  unofficial  but  roughly  effective 
organization,  takes  form.  There  are  secret 
hand-grips  and,  more  important  than  these, 
the  secret  signs  to  the  lodging-house  clerk 
or  the  fellow-members, —  a  forefinger  against 
the  chin,  a  hand  on  the  lapel  of  the  coat.  In 
the  office  of  the  tramps '  lodging-house,  v/here 
the  dirty  bundles  that  were  men  slump  down 
in  their  chairs  along  the  wall,  wise  eyes  are 
watching  continually  the  unknown  man. 

The  Criminal  and  the  Political  Machine 

The  handling  of  this  plain  vagrant  vote 
is  comparatively  simple.     But  the  handling 


of  the  repeater  is  more  delicate  and  silent 
work.  About  election  time  there  is  a  gen- 
eral drift  toward  Chicago  in  the  professional 
criminal  world.  This  naturally  varies. 
Sometimes  the  visitors  are  few;  sometimes, 
as  in  one  memorable  election  in  the  First 
Ward  a  decade  ago,  they  drift  around  town 
in  "mobs."  But  generally  speaking,  it  is 
known  that  this  is  an  easy  time  for  criminals 
in  Chicago.  Old  friends  gather  in ;  the  many 
criminal  craftsmen  Chicago  has  sent  out  into 
the  world  make  it  a  time  of  home-coming. 
There  are  two  particular  saloons  where  they 
especially  congregate,  —  places  kept  by  two 
precinct  captains,  down  on  lower  State 
Street  in  Ward  One.  The  keeper  of  the  one 
further  south  is  himself  an  ex-safe-blower 
and  a  man  of  national  reputation  in  his 
craft.  The  other  precinct  captain,  Andy 
Craig,  served  his  term  in  Joliet  for  stealing 
jewelry.  For  a  decade,  giving  up  that  oc- 
cupation, he  has  flourished,  perennially  young, 
as  the  keeper  of  a  large  department  store  in 
vice,  on  lower  State  Street,  where  he  sells 
liquor,  prostitution,  and  gambling  under  the 
special  favor  of  those  on  high.    A  "  capper  " 

—  a  pale,  lemon-blond  young  man,  with 
rakish  hat  and  cigar,  —  stands  outside,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  caller  for  the  cheap  mu- 
seum, and  confidentially  tolls  in  the  bands 
of  roving  males. 

The  value  of  the  stout-hearted  repeater 
is  evident  from  pure  mathematics.  Twenty- 
five  men  going  down  twenty  precincts  means 
five  hundred  votes.  All  men  of  nerve  can 
have  their  special  uses.  Pickpockets  and 
confidence  men,  who  present  an  especially 
good  appearance,  make  excellent  repeaters. 
"  Strong-arm  men  "  and  husky  tramps  do 
well  to  hold  back  the  voting  line  or  pick  a 
row  to  discourage  soft-handed  voters.  The 
high-class  burglar  —  the  aristocrat  of  crime 

—  naturally  does  not  take  chances  with  this 
work,  but  nearly  all  the  ordinary  run  of 
criminals  is  available.  Throughout  the 
year,  in  their  summer  wanderings  out  into 
the  country,  many  of  these  men  keep  in 
continued  touch  with  the  machine  at  home. 
When  they  get  "in  a  jam"  (arrested)  they 
write  to  the  political  agent,  or  address  their 
other  friends  in  his  care.  The  connection 
which  the  criminal  forms  in  this  manner  with 
the  machinery  of  government  is  invaluable  to 
him. 

The  consummation  of  the  year's  work 
comes  in  the  city  elections  in  the  spring. 
Election  day  is  business  in  Ward  One,  and 


586 


THE     CITY     OF    CHICAGO 


there  is  great  pride  in  this  fact.  The  pre- 
cinct workers  are  lodged  the  night  before  in 
some  hotel,  at  the  organization's  expense. 
Thev  get  up  clear-headed  and  early.  At 
dawn  men  go  about  the  streets  with  giant 
fire-crackers,  waking  the  sleepers  in  the  lodg- 
ing-houses. They  are  given  a  free  morning 
drink —  "  a  scrub  of  the  brush."  Then  they 
go  out  into  the  gray  morning,  ready  for  their 
work — the  early  voting  is  what  counts. 
These  men  are  thrown  into  the  polling-places 
at  si.x  o'clock;  by  the  time  the  city  is  half 
awake,  a  good  share  of  the  voting  has  been 
done.  The  price  of  a  vote  is  determined  upon. 
This  does  not  take  long,  for  the  market  price 
is  generally  arrived  at  through  the  simple 
working  of  demand  and  supply.  Then  the 
voter  is  handed  his  name  on  a  slip  of  paper, 
or  sometimes  a  marked  ballot  for  deposit. 
He  goes  into  the  booth,  returns  to  the  pre- 
cinct worker,  and  is  paid  —  formerly,  in  the 
less  careful  days,  in  cash;  now  often  with 
slips  of  paper,  to  be  cashed  in  later  at  some 
place  agreed  upon. 

The  exact  cost  of  an  election  in  the  First 
and  Eighteenth  Wards  would  be  difficult  to 
estimate,  even  to  those  who  have  access  to 
the  most  intimate  bookkeeping  of  the  organ- 
ization. There  are  so  many  irregular  items, 
like  the  boarding  of  individual  voters  for 
days  and  even  for  weeks.  Perhaps  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  might  be  an  average 
estimate  for  Ward  One.  Opinions  vary  wide- 
ly. So  many  persons  are  concerned,  not  only 
in  taking,  but  in  handling  the  money.  The 
demand  at  different  elections  varies  so.  Re- 
cently prices  paid  for  votes  have  been  getting 
very  low.  At  the  registration  of  last  fall,  ten 
cents  was  all  that  was  offered  in  the  early  day. 
Later  a  quarter  was  paid.  There  was  much 
dissatisfaction  expressed  at  these  rates.  For 
votes,  cash  prices  paid  lately  are  quoted  from 
fifty  cents  up  to  as  high  as  three  dollars  a  head. 

TJie  Machuiery  of  Protection 

By  this  careful  organization  and  large  ex- 
penditure of  money,  the  traders  in  dissipation 
have  been  able  to  make,  through  the  ward 
boss,  excellent  terms  with  the  city  adminis- 
trations. You  might  think  this  would  be 
difficult  to  do  with  decent  mayors  —  such  as 
Chicago  has  had  continuously  for  the  past  ten 
years,  ^'ou  are  wrong.  The  First  and  Eight- 
eenth Wards  have  had,  so  far  as  the  ad- 
ministration was  concerned,  about  all  the 
privilege  that  was  necessary  for  the  carrying 
on  of  their  business  during  that  time.     I  do 


not  mean  there  is  any  distinct  agreement  by 
an  administration  to  protect  this  business. 
Rarely,  if  ever,  has  there  been  this  in  recent 
years.  .Ml  that  is  needed  is  a  tacit  acquiescence 
in  local  political  custom.  The  thing  is  indeed 
a  very  simple  matter  of  routine  politics. 
The  leaders  of  these  wards  have  in  their 
hands  the  absolute  power  of  giving  or  with- 
holding a  majority  of  seventy-five  hundred 
votes  for  the  Democratic  party.  The  city 
is  naturally  very  nicely  balanced  politically 
between  the  two  parties.  Wards  One  and 
Eighteen  are  therefore  the  leaders  in  the 
Democratic  organization.  The  ward  rights 
sentiment  is  very  strong  in  Chicago;  in  its 
government,  in  fact,  it  is  really  more  a  con- 
federacy of  wards  than  a  city.  Immediately 
after  election  each  ward  makes  demand  for 
its  special  patronage  from  the  administration. 
Now,  the  First  and  Eighteenth  Wards  de- 
mand and  get  much.  They  have  always 
insisted  upon  one  thing  —  the  choice  of  their 
police  court  judges  and  of  their  police  offi- 
cials.    This  they  have  always  had. 

Until  the  present  time  the  local  criminal 
courts  in  Chicago  have  been  in  charge  of  the 
police  magistrate,  one  of  the  relics  of  the  old 
town  government,  of  which  Chicago  has  been 
full.  Sixty  justices  of  the  peace  were  nom- 
inated by  the  circuit-court  judges  in  Cook 
County;  were  appointed  by  the  governor, 
and  confirmed  by  the  senate  of  the  State.  It 
was  this  transaction,  undoubtedly,  which 
excited  in  the  mind  of  George  E.  Cole,  the 
abrupt  and  active  Chicago  reformer,  the 
pessimism  which  led  him  to  exclaim:  "I 
wouldn't  trust  the  judges  to  appoint  a  com- 
mittee to  If  cid  my  dog  to  the  pound ! "  From 
these  sixty  justices  of  the  peace,  the  mayor 
chose  and  assigned  to  the  different  districts 
in  the  city,  sixteen  police  magistrates.  The 
First  and  Eighteenth  Wards  secured  exactly 
the  police  magistrates  they  desired.  The 
relation  between  these  officials  and  the  lead- 
ers of  the  wards  were  so  close  and  informal, 
that  the  leaders,  in  many  instances,  did  not 
trouble  to  arrange  in  person  for  the  justice 
to  be  meted  out  to  their  various  unfortunate 
constituents.  It  was  a  common  occurrence, 
in  at  least  one  court,  for  a  ward  leader's 
assistants  to  telephone  before  the  morning 
session  the  disposition  he  desired  to  have 
made  of  the  various  cases  which  had  been 
called  to  his  attention. 

The  arrangement  with  the  police  force  is 
an  easy  matter.  The  administration  can  be 
relied  upon  in  one  way  or  another  to  respect 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


587 


the  wishes  of  the  ward  in  regard  to  this  ser- 
vice. And  the  police  department  furnishes 
a  large  supply  of  exactly  the  officials  desired 
by  the  interests  of  these  wards. 

Two  Cities  of  Savages 
Under  this  system  of  protection  from  the 
law,  there  has  been  established  in  Chicago  a 
condition  unique  in  this  country.  The  center 
of  Chicago,  all  things  considered,  is  the 
cheapest  market  of  dissipation  in  Caucasian 
civilization.  The  prices  in  European  cities, 
no  doubt,  are  absolutely  lower,  but  relative 
to  the  ease  of  obtaining  means  to  spend, 
either  by  begging  or  stealing  or  casual  labor, 
they  are  not  to  be  compared  with  the  great, 
rough,  bountiful  American  city.  A  full  quart 
of  beer  is  sold  in  the  saloon  for  five  cents; 
prostitution  is  as  low  as  ten  cents.  As  for  the 
expense  of  living,  a  lodging  for  the  night  costs 
five  and  ten  cents,  and  meals,  if  you  buy  them, 
can  be  had  as  low  as  a  nickel.  With  ten  cents 
—  five  cents  for  a  bed  and  five  cents  for  a 
glass  of  beer,  and  access  to  the  free  lunch  — 
a  man  may  cover  the  space  of  twenty-four 
hours  and  pay  his  way.  A  "town  bum"  in 
Chicago  said  recently:  "  I  have  not  had  my 
legs  under  a  table  for  six  years." 

Chicago  is  the  great  inland  center  of  the 
country;  trains  by  hundreds  drop  in  there 
every  day.  Around  it  is  the  best  territory 
in  the  world  for  tramping  and  for  casual 
labor;  about  it,  in  an  unholy  ring,  stand 
penitentiaries  by  the  dozen.  And  when  the 
service  and  the  tramping  and  the  casual 
labor  are  done,  the  criminals  and  the  half- 
criminals  and  the  quarter-criminals  come 
drifting  back  into  Chicago.  They  come 
there  by  choice,  of  course:  for  one  chief 
reason.  There  they  can  enjoy,  with  the 
least  disturbance,  at  the  lowest  cost,  cheap 
dissipation  —  the  kind  of  life  they  wish  to 
live.  Nights,  the  ten-cent  lodging-house. 
Days,  and  the  long  evenings,  the  "  barrel 
house" — that  curious  dive  so  strangely  like 
the  thieves'  den  of  the  Middle  Ages.  "Town 
bums"  are  there,  jerky,  pompous  cocaine 
fiends,  "gay-cats,"  and  "hoboes,"  blown  in 
from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth;  and  in 
the  evening,  those  great  husky,  hideous  beg- 
gars who  hitch  and  crawl  about  the  Chicago 
streets  by  day;  and  now  and  then  the  real 
tramp-burglar  —  the  "yeggman,"  with  his 
bag  of  "soup"  across  the  soft  muscles  of 
his  belly,  —  nitroglycerine  enough  to  blow 
the  whole  unlikely  company  back  to  limbo. 
In  the  center  of  Chicago  are  now  two  small 


cities  of  savages  —  self-regulating  and  self- 
protecting.  In  one  of  these  there  are  thirty- 
five  thousand  people;  in  the  other,  thirty 
thousand.  It  is  a  region  of  adults  —  one 
child  in  every  eight  or  nine  people,  while 
there  is  one  in  three  in  the  general 
population  of  the  city.  The  inhabitants 
neither  labor  regularly  nor  marry.  Half  of 
the  men  are  beggars,  criminals,  or  floating 
laborers;  a  quarter  are  engaged  in  the  sale 
of  dissipation;  and  a  third  of  the  women 
are  prostitutes.  A  great  share  of  the  men 
spend  most  of  their  waking  hours  thoroughly 
drugged  with  cheap  alcohol.  Society  here 
has  lapsed  back  into  a  condition  more  prim- 
itive than  the  jungle. 

Tlie  Price  of  Protection 

It  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  the  cash 
payment  which  must  be  made  every  year  by 
the  interests  of  dissipation,  for  the  privilege 
of  breaking  the  law.  So  many  people  re- 
ceive the  money,  so  many  give  it  out. 
There  is  such  a  variation  from  time  to  time. 
Mowever,  there  cannot  be  less  than  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  paid  out 
now.  There  is  probably  much  more.  Pros- 
titution pays  at  least  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand;  the  remainder  is  largely  paid  by 
gambling. 

The  best  and  most  businesslike  collection 
for  protection  takes  place,  naturally,  in  the 
greatest  and  best  organized  center  of  dissipa- 
tion,—  Ward  One.  In  the  first  place,  there 
are  the  transactions  with  which  every  one  is 
familiar.  The  Junior  Alderman,  "Bath-house 
John,"  as  an  insurance  agent,  sells  his  policies, 
not  only  to  the  saloon-keepers  and  houses  of 
prostitution  in  the  ward,  but  to  the  great 
business  houses  in  the  district.  He  also  sells, 
through  his  business  partner,  a  large  quan- 
tity of  whisky. 

Once  a  year,  in  the  early  winter,  comes  the 
annual  Ward  One  Democratic  Club  Ball. 
The  proceeds  of  this  go  into  the  hands  of  the 
two  aldermen  who  themselves  constitute 
this  club,  supposedly  for  use  in  their  reelec- 
tion. This  enterprise  is  conducted  with  the 
excellent,  orderly  sense  of  business  which 
marks  all  the  operations  of  this  ward.  A 
manager  is  appointed  to  take  charge  of  all 
details.  Last  December  this  was  Sol  Fried- 
man, the  partner  of  Coughlin.  A  certain 
number  of  fifty-cent  tickets  are  then  appor- 
tioned to  those  who  must  take  them.  Sa- 
loons are  allotted  from  fifteen  to  twenty- 
five  dollars'  worth  apiece;  houses  of  ill-fame 


5d8 


THE    CITY    OF    CHICAGO 


from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  dollars' 
worth,  and  large  gamblers  five  hundred  dol- 
lars' worth  or  more.  It  is  not  desirable  for 
the  takers,  having  bought,  to  stay  away. 
What  is  wished  is  to  get  all  the  tickets 
possible  in  the  hands  of  "spenders."  Then 
comes  the  ball  —  a  short  evening  and  a 
long  early  morning;  outrageous  carnival 
that  swells  and  burgeons  under  the  huge, 
hollow  vault  of  the  coliseum,  to  cyclopean 
outbursts  of  animal  joy;  a  general  blur  of 
blue  tobacco-smoke  and  red  slippers  and 
cosmetics;  two  thousand  women  of  the 
town,  dancing  or  filling  the  stalls  at  the  edges 
of  the  floor.  But  underneath  it  all,  the  man 
with  the  pad  and  pencil  watches,  and  the 
man  with  the  cash  register  at  the  endless  bar, 
checking  up  the  required  amount  of  dissipa- 
tion,—  the  wine  which  every  tributary  con- 
cern must  buy.  The  receipts  from  the  last 
ball  were  thirty-three  thousand  five  hundred 
dollars  —  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  for 
the  tickets  and  eight  thousand  five  hundred 
for  drink.  The  expenses  are  not  large,  and 
net  profits  of  the  night  of  December  loth 
must  have  been  at  least  twenty-seven  thous- 
and five  hundred  dollars. 

All  this,  of  course,  though  open  and  signi- 
ficant, is  a  small  matter.  There  remains  the 
weekly  or  monthly  routine  collection  from 
the  enterprises  in  the  ward.  The  big  general 
Levee  district,  nearly  all  in  the  boundaries 
of  Ward  One,  is  visited  by  regular  collectors. 
Their  rates  vary  from  time  to  time.  In 
December  they  ranged  from  twenty-five 
to  fifty  dollars  a  month  for  the  protection 
of  houses  of  prostitution,  according  to  the 
size  of  the  business.  This  price  was  very 
low  compared  with  the  prices  of  previous 
years.  The  money  was  handed  to  the  col- 
lecting-agent,—  in  bills,  of  course,  and,  of 
course,  there  were  no  receipts  given.  The 
payment  settled  both  the  claims  of  the 
ward  authorities  and  the  police.  In  return 
for  this,  the  contributor  was  entitled  to  an 
advance  notice  from  the  police  of  any  new 
regulations  which  were  to  be  temporarily 
imposed  on  the  district,  and  a  further  notice 
afterward  as  to  when  it  was  all  right  to 
return  to  former  methods  of  business.  To 
enter  this  business,  it  was  necessary  to  get  in 
touch  with  the  w  ard  officials  and  the  police. 

The  ' '  System  ' '  in  the  Police  Department 

The  purchase  of  the  police  in  Chicago  is 
made  simple  by  the  fact  that  the  upper  half 
of  the  force,  —  that  is,  the  half  that  furnishes 


the  officials, — came  into  the  service  when 
the  police  force  was  freely  and  frankly  for 
sale  to  the  interests  of  dissipation.  Of  course, 
not  all  of  the  officials  of  the  Chicago  police 
force  are  for  sale.  It  is  clear,  however,  that 
the  dealer  in  dissipation  could  not  receive 
adequate  protection  unless  there  were  a 
thorough  organization  in  the  police  depart- 
ment, to  see  that  this  was  given.  Otherwise, 
there  might  be,  at  any  time,  some  individual 
officer  or  official,  who  would  blunder  in  and 
attempt  to  enforce  the  law.  There  is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  just  such  an  organization. 
It  is  not  a  formal  thing;  naturally,  it  does 
not  elect  officers  or  pass  by-laws  ;  but,  in 
a  large  sense,  it  is  just  as  efficient.  It  is 
spoken  of  as  the  System. 

The  System  comes  about  very  simply. 
The  influence  of  the  ward  bosses  in  the 
districts  of  dissipation  secures  from  the 
administration  the  police  officials  they  desire. 
These  officials  see  that  the  men  under  them 
carry  out  the  business  agreements  which 
they  themselves  make  with  the  leaders  of  the 
ward.  If  a  new  policeman  does  not  enter 
into  relations  with  the  System  or  acquiesce 
in  its  working,  he  is  "jobbed."  That  is,  by 
various  technical  charges  against  him  by  his 
superior  officer,  he  is  kept  under  continual 
suspicion  and  finally  either  shipped  off  to 
some  outlying  district  of  the  city  or  even 
discharged  from  the  department  on  trumped- 
up  charges.  The  Cnicago  department  is  now 
under  civil  service  and  has  been  for  ten  years, 
but  this  effective  and  simple  method  makes 
it  possible  to  beat  the  civil  service  rules  and 
to  organize  the  force  so  that  the  required 
protection  can  be  guaranteed  to  the  interests 
of  dissipation. 

Inside  the  department  there  is  either  an 
astonishing  fear  of  this  System  or  a  loyalty 
•to  it  that  is  simply  amazing.  Occasionally, 
however,  a  revolt  discloses  its  methods  of 
operation.  An  interesting  example  of  this 
came  in  the  case  of  the  discharge  of  Lieu- 
tenant Roger  Mulcahy,  last  year.  Mulcahy 
did  two  things  which  two  police  officers  could 
not  stomach.  A  labor  leader  met  in  a  saloon 
a  negro,  took  offense  at  something  he  said, 
and  wantonly  shot  him  in  the  leg;  the  man's 
leg  was  afterwards  amputated.  About  the 
same  time  a  well-known  negro  was  arrested 
and  shown  to  have  had  a  wholesale  career  in  a 
vile  crime  which  was  terrifying  the  whole 
vicinity.  Both  men  had  strong  political  in- 
fluence. Mulcahy,  the  police-lieutenant,  be- 
cause of  this  influence,  brought  them  up  on 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


589 


minor  charges  before  the  court  and  arranged 
the  machinery  for  their  discharge.  The  two 
poHcemen  went  into  rebellion.  "There  are 
some  things  I  won't  stand  for,"  said  one, 
with  a  great  oath.  They  themselves  took 
the  matter  to  the  Grand  Jury,  and  both  of 
the  criminals  were  severely  punished.  In 
the  meanwhile,  Mulcahy  had  started  out 
after  the  two  rebels  in  the  usual  fashion  of 
the  System.  In  the  two  months  before  the 
Grand  Jury  acted,  Mulcahy  had  one  man  up 
five  times  on  minor  charges  before  the  police 
trial  board.  In  May  he  recommended  the  dis- 
charge of  the  other  man  from  the  department 
for  drunkenness.  He  was  going  through,  in 
fact,  the  usual  forms  of  "jobbing."  This  time, 
however,  the  process  had  disastrous  results. 
The  men  were  retained  with  honor,  and  de- 
velopments at  their  trial  brought  about  the 
discharge  of  the  lieutenant  himself. 

The  Price  of  the  Police 

There  must  be,  at  a  conservative  estimate, 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  paid 
over  to  the  police,  for  protection  to  the 
business  of  dissipation.  Just  where  that 
money  goes  into  the  department  is,  of  course, 
almost  impossible  to  tell.  It  is  a  matter  of 
fact,  for  instance,  that  the  gambling  squad 
—  eight  or  ten  men  under  the  personal  com- 
mand of  the  Chief  of  Police  —  sit  and  watch 
the  operations  of  "handbook"  makers  and 
even  bet  themselves.  It  is  also  a  fact  that 
when  personal  information  has  been  given  to 
the  Chief  of  Police  concerning  a  betting- 
place,  that  place  has  been  perfunctorily 
raided  and  has  been  in  operation  again  a 
half  hour  after  this  was  done.  But  it  would 
be  impossible  to  demonstrate  from  this 
evidence  that  the  present  Chief  of  Police 
was  paid  to  protect  gambling  in  Chicago. 
It  is  true  that  criminal  saloons  and  houses  of 
prostitution  have  an  understanding  with  the 
police  that  they  may  violate  the  law  until 
some  one  protests,  and  that  then  they  will 
be  notified  by  the  police  and  kept  in  touch 
with  the  situation  until  it  is  advisable  for 
them  to  resume  the  practices  which  are 
objected  to.  But  who  gets  the  pay  for  this 
and  what  the  pay  is,  has  not  yet  been  deter- 
mined with  legal  exactitude.  It  is  worth 
while,  perhaps,  as  showing  the  possibilities 
in  the  case,  to  recall  that  one  ex-chief  of 
police  said,  in  a  burst  of  confidence,  that  he 
had  put  away  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven 
thousand  dollars  during  his  few  years  of 
office. 


The  Break- Down  of  the  Police  Force 

The  result  of  all  this  is  not  difficult  to  im- 
agine. The  City  Council  of  Chicago,  in  the 
paroxysm  of  excitement  over  the  reign  of 
crime  of  a  year  ago,  voted  for  one  thousand 
new  policemen,  most  of  whom  have  now 
been  added  to  the  force.  It  was  asserted 
then  that  there  were  not  men  enough  to 
protect  that  great  and  wide-lying  city. 
This  was  certainly  true,  but  it  was  an  un- 
derstatement of  the  case.  The  exact  con- 
dition was  stated  by  Captain  Alexander  R. 
Piper,  an  expert  who,  with  Roundsman 
William  F.  Maher  of  New  York,  made  a 
special  investigation  of  the  Chicago  police 
in  1904.  He  said  in  summing  up:  "It  is 
not  necessary  for  me  to  tell  you  that  you 
have  practically  no  protection  on  your 
streets.  You  all  know  it,  and  you  know  how 
seldom  you  see  an  officer  at  night.  Your 
patrolmen  pull  the  box  on  the  hour  or  half- 
hour  and  then  lounge  in  their  holes  or  some 
saloon."     These  conditions  exist  to-day. 

The  reason  for  all  this  is  clear.  The  busi- 
ness of  dissipation,  working  through  ward 
politics,  has  bought  the  protection  of  the 
Chicago  police  force.  This  fact  necessarily 
deprives  the  police  force  of  its  usefulness  to 
the  public.  The  officials  who  are  actually 
receiving  pay  for  granting  protection  are 
in  a  combination  to  break  the  law.  This 
combination  extends  below  them  to  a  certain 
extent  into  the  department;  and  it  encour- 
ages, of  course,  every  patrolman  who  is 
at  all  dishonest  to  break  or  help  to  break  the 
laws.  Various  members  of  the  force  have, 
in  the  past,  formed  alliances  with  criminals; 
and  the  relation  was  so  close  with  them  that 
patrolmen  have  actually  arranged  burg- 
laries through  professional  craftsmen.  The 
force  itself  contains  also  quite  a  number  of 
criminals:  men  who  have  been  convicted 
from  time  to  time  of  crimes  ranging  from 
shoplifting  to  burglary.  Indeed,  it  is  a  fact 
that  criminals,  attracted  by  the  possible 
chances  of  profits,  are  continually  trying  to 
get  into  the  department.  In  a  recent  call 
for  four  hundred  and  fifty  men,  thirty-five 
applicants  were  found  to  have  criminal  rec- 
ords. Of  course,  there  can  be  no  discipline 
under  these  conditions.  There  is,  as  Rounds- 
man Maher  said,  practically  no  patroling. 
There  is  continual  loafing  on  the  beat,  with 
petty  grafting  down  at  the  bottom  of  the 
department.  The  condition  of  the  depart- 
ment is  summed  up  in  the  statement,  that  in 


T  H  F     C  I  T  V     ()  F  .  C  H  I  C  A  C.  O 


two  vears,  1004  and  ions,  over  lialf  the  force 
was  before  the  pohce  trial  board  for  one 
cause   or    another. 

Organ i{ii/ ion  for  Exploiting  Savagery 
The  addition  of  the  pohce  force  completes 
the  great  organization  for  the  exploitation 
of  savagery  in  the  City  of  Chicago.  The 
dealer  in  dissipation,  the  ward  boss,  and  the 
police  official  are  its  chief  members.  1  have 
tried  to  show  clearly  the  simple  and  in- 
evitable process  by  which  this  organization 
was  built  up.  .\  business  interest  abso- 
lutely against  the  law  must  make  positive 
arrangements  to  break  the  law  in  order  to 
exist.  It  buys  the  right  to  do  this  out  of  its 
huge  income  —  first,  politically,  through  its 
business  agent,  the  ward  boss;  and,  second, 
by  the  purchase  of  the  authorities  which  so- 
ciety employs  to  protect  itself, — particularly 
the  police.  In  doing  this  it  consolidates 
every  influence  hostile  to  well-organized 
society,  from  the  robber  and  prostitute  to 
the  corrupt  police  official,  in  a  great  body 
whose  continual  influence  is  to  impair  or 
break  down  civilization. 

The  one  clue  to  the  workings  of  this  or- 
ganization is  the  money  of  dissipation  which 
finances  it.  Every  dollar  of  this,  it  might  be 
said,  is  subtracted  from  the  sum  total  of  the 
assets  of  the  civilization  of  Chicago.  The 
making  of  savages  is  not  likely  to  be  inter- 
fered with  greatly  so  long  as  it  merely  costs 
some  hundreds  or  thousands  of  individual 
lives  a  year.  Society  does  not  busy  itself 
sufficiently  with  the  affairs  of  its  members 
for  this.  But,  unfortunately,  the  savages, 
once  created  and  located  in  a  city,  begin  to 
reach  out  and  prey  upon  the  civilized  and 
orderly  population  about  them.  They  must 
find  their  own  living  according  to  their  own 
methods.  There  is  continual  tribute  levied; 
and,  now  and  then,  when  the  season  is  ripe, 
or  some  other  particular  conditions  exist, 
there  break  out  those  "waves  of  crime" 
which  terrify  and  anger  the  population  which 
is  preyed  upon. 

Hold-Ups—  The  Raids  of  Criminals 
The  great  specialty  of  Chicago  crime  is,  of 
course,  the  hold-up :  that  is,  the  robbery  on 
the  open  street.  This  is  either  the  work  of 
the  savages  who  congregate  in  the  First  and 
Eighteenth  Wards,  or  of  the  young  foreign- 
ers who  are  taught  by  the  example  of 
these  men  and  stimulated  by  their  early 
education  in  dissipation  and  their  personal 


knowledge  of  the  opportunities  offered  by 
the  absence  of  proper  police  regulation. 
They  are  looking  for  easy  money,  and  they 
know  of  no  simpler  method  to  secure  it  than 
this.  Nothing  more  absolutely  fish-blooded 
and  inhuman  has  been  produced  by  modern 
civilization  than  the  type  of  the  "  car-barn 
bandits,"  who  shot  down  human  beings  with 
exactly  the  same  dispassionate  accuracy 
that  they  employed  against  the  rocking 
images  in  the  State  Street  shooting  galleries 
of  Ward  One,  where  they  created,  night  after 
night,  their  astonishing  skill  with  fire-arms. 
The  most  disturbing  thing  about  all  these 
hold-ups  is,  naturally,  the  cold  certainty 
of  their  producing  just  so  many  murders 
and  just  so  many  violent  assaults  year  after 
year. 

It  is  this  one  particular  thing  —  the  mur- 
derous street  robbery  —  which  more  than  all 
others  has  given  Chicago  its  reputation  for 
crime.  This  is  not  the  only  point,  however, 
at  which  the  savages  overrun  the  city.  Burg- 
laries are  much  too  frequent, —  not  high-class 
jobs,  but  mostly  the  cheap  and  violent  work 
which  must  be  expected  from  the  irruption 
of  the  low-class  criminal  from  the  territory 
of  cheap  dissipation.  Morning  after  mor- 
ning the  vigorous  beggars  move  out  over 
the  boundaries  of  savagery  and  limp  and 
crawl  and  wriggle  down  the  Chicago  streets. 
When  the  weather  is  right  to  gather  them  in, 
and  they  feel  the  courage  of  numbers  and  the 
sharp  necessities  of  the  season, —  as  they  have 
during  the  past  winter,—  the  beggar  and  the 
"hobo"  easily  become  the  hold-up  man. 

The  Murders  of  Dissipation 
The  murders  of  Chicago  are  generally 
personal  matters  between  the  savages.  The 
great  exception,  of  course,  is  when  the  savage, 
in  his  attacks  on  members  outside  his  class, 
finds  it  necessary  or  advisable  to  kill  his 
prey.  There  is  a  strong  belief  that  murder 
in  America  is  increasing  because  of  our 
failure  to  enforce  the  death  penalty.  This,  no 
doubt,  has  its  influence.  But  the  murders 
in  Chicago  are  principally  murders  of  dissipa- 
tion and  passion,  committed  by  individuals 
who  never  calculated  in  their  life  the  chances 
of  the  death  penalty,  and  certainly  never 
could  consider  it,  in  their  mental  condition  at 
the  time  the  murder  was  committed.  The 
only  authority  which  could  possibly  touch 
their  imagination  would  be  the  visible  symbol 
of  an  honest  and  efficient  police  force  — 
which  they  do  not  have.     Of  one  hundred 


GEORGE     KIBBE    TURNER 


591 


and  eighty-seven  homicides  in  Chicago, 
from  December  i,  1904,  to  December  i, 
1905,  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  were  by 
shooting,  stabbing,  or  blows;  and  only  three 
by  poison.  Of  the  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  in  the  year  closing  last  December  ist,  one 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  were  by  shooting 
or  other  violent  means,  and  only  eight 
by  poisoning.  These  murders  were  hasty, 
savage  acts  of  a  crude  population,  and  not 
in  the  least  the  calculating  crimes  of  a  calm-" 
er  and  more  intellectual  civilization.  But 
the  loss  of  life  among  the  savages  themselves 
is  alarming.  The  death-rate  from  murder 
in  Chicago  is  six  or  eight  times  greater  than 
in  the  cities  of  Great  Britain,  and  twenty 
or  twenty-five  times  greater  than  in  the 
cities  of  Germany.  In  Europe  it  is  only  ap- 
proached and  surpassed  in  the  black  murder 
belt  of  Lower  Italy. 

The  Real  Organiser  of  l^icious  Politics 
There  are  two  chief  exploiters  of  the  cities 
of  America,  —  the  public  service  corporation 
and  the  business  of  dissipation.  Attention 
has  been  directed  during  the  past  few 
years  almost  entirely  to  the  former.  It  has 
become  the  orthodox  belief  that  the  public 
service  corporation  was  the  original  coi- 
rupter  of  American  cities.  This  is  not  true, 
especially  in  large  cities.  Long  before  the 
public  service  corporation  existed,  the  cor- 
rupt ward  politics  of  cities  was  organized 
by  the  business  of  dissipation.  When  the 
corporation  arrived  for  the  first  time  in  that 
murky  region,  it  found  the  herd  already 
there, —  feeding,  feeding,  feeding  on  the  rich 
filth  of  the  sale  of  savagery.  The  corporation 
merely  dumped  its  contribution  in  and  left 
it  in  the  general  pile.  The  leaders  of  the 
herd  may  find  their  provender  in  the  largess 
of  the  corporation,  but  the  herd  itself,  the 
organization  of  the  ward,  has  always  been  and 
will  continue  to  be  nourished  by  the  vastly 
greater  interests  of  dissipation.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  does  not  receive  mere  gifts  from 
these  interests  as  it  does  from  the  corpora- 
tion. The  members  of  the  political  organiz- 
ation take  the  profits  themselves.  They  are 
not  in  ward  politics;  they  are  ward  politics. 
And  this  business  divides  millions  of  dollars, 
while  the  corporation  divides  hundreds  of 
thousands,  in  American  city  politics. 

The  City  of  Chicago  is  just  completing  a 
splendid  victory  over  corrupt  public  service 
corporations.  It  is  now  turning  its  attention 
to  this  second  great  business  interest  which 


is  debauching  it.  This  will  be  far  more  diffi- 
cult to  fight  than  the  other  one.  The  differ- 
ence can  be  stated  by  mere  statistics.  The 
gross  receipts  of  the  surface  street  railways, 
which  the  City  of  Chicago  has  at  last  brought 
into  reasonable  subjection,  are  sixteen  mil- 
lion dollars  a  year  —  that  is,  only  four-fifths 
of  the  receipts  for  prostitution.  If  you  add 
to  that  sum  the  receipts  of  the  elevated 
roads,  you  have  twenty-three  million  dollars 
as  the  entire  receipts  of  the  traction  inter- 
ests in  Chicago.  This  amount  is  less  than 
two-thirds  of  the  annual  receipts  for  pros- 
titution and  gambling  in  the  City  of  Chicago. 
But  this  is  only  a  partial  statement.  The 
profits  and  the  political  necessities  of  the  busi- 
ness of  dissipation  are  incomparably  greater 
than  those  of  the  public  service  corporation. 
The  time  is  coming  very  soon  when  the 
American  city  is  to  make  a  scientific  study 
of  the  sale  of  dissipation.  A  start,  indeed, 
has  already  been  made.  A  reasonable  regu- 
lation of  the  saloons,  for  example,  as  against 
the  present  hideous  struggle  for  business, 
must  be  undertaken.  But  these  matters  will 
require  long  and  patient  consideration.  In 
the  meanwhile,  there  is  one  obvious  thing 
which  must  be  done.  The  money  of  dissipa- 
tion must  be  taken  out  of  city  politics. 
American  civilization  is  making  progress, 
although  slow,  in  excluding  the  money  of 
corporations  from  its  political  life.  It  must 
take  up  this  other  problem  at  once. 

A  Stultified  Civiliiation 
There  is  only  one  way  to  do  this  —  to  change 
the  machinery  of  government  where  it  has 
been  found  lacking.  Chicago  has  already 
made  a  start  in  this  direction.  It  has  just 
replaced  the  corrupt  and  archaic  police 
magistrates'  courts  by  a  more  modern  insti- 
tution. It  has  raised  the  cost  of  liquor 
licenses  and  taken  a  step  in  the  right  di- 
rection by  restricting  the  number  of  saloons. 
It  has  increased  the  police  force.  It  is  secur- 
ing new  laws  against  the  sale  of  cocaine.  It 
is  attempting  to  enforce  more  careful  election 
laws.  And  now  it  is  trying  to  get  a  new 
charter.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  provisions 
in  this  will  improve  conditions  in  Chicago, 
but  from  the  present  outlook  this  issue 
seems  doubtful. 

There  are  two  main  causes  for  the  exces- 
sive crime  in  Chicago.  The  first  is  the 
saturation  of  the  poorer  classes  with  alco- 
holic liquor,  by  the  agents  of  a  business  under 
a    terrible    economic    pressure    to    produce 


59^ 


THE    CITY    OF    CHICAGO 


revenue.  The  time  is  coming  in  America 
and  Europe  when  the  important  and  delicate 
function  of  the  distribution  of  intoxicants 
to  city  popuhitions  will  be  taken  from  these 
purely  selfish  interests  which  now  hold  it; 
when  the  reasonable  safeguarding  of  the 
public,  and  not  the  necessities  of  private 
enterprises,  operated  under  the  stress  of  a 
wolfish  competition,  will  be  the  main  com- 
pelling motive  in  the  conduct  of  this  trade. 

The  second  great  cause  of  crime  is  the 
purchase  of  the  right  to  break  the  law  by  the 
dealers  in  illegal  dissipation, —  that  is,  by 
the  sellers  of  savagery.  This  is  the  chief 
reason  for  waves  of  crime  in  great  cities. 
It  is  more  immediately  alarming  than  the 
unregulated  sale  of  liquor  :  not  only  because 
every  act  committed  under  it  impairs  or 
breaks  down  our  civilization;  but  because, 
indirectly,  the  purchase  of  authority  — 
particularly  of  the  police  —  rots  society  at 
its  fpundations  and  atrophies  the  power  of 
dealing  with  crime  of  all  descriptions. 

It  is  the  custom  to  call  the  tribute  of 
illegal  establishments  to  the  police  of  great 
cities  blackmail.  This  term  is  neither  com- 
prehensive nor  accurate.  The  operation  is 
merely  one  phase  in  the  working  out  of  the 
business  of  a  great  financial  and  political 
organization.  Inroads  have  been  made  and 
will  be  made  upon  the  influence  of  this  organi- 
zation by  attacks  on  particular  powers  —  as 
has  been  done  in  Chicago.  Such  attacks 
will  probably  not  achieve  final  results. 

The  fact  is,  that  under  present  conditions 
the  financial  interests  of  dissipation   have 


more  direct  representation  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  city  government  than  the  will 
of  the  people.  In  Chicago  the  dealer  in 
vice  reaches  directly  through  the  ward  and 
county  organizations  into  the  police  depart- 
ment. The  citizen  at  large  must  act  through 
a  mayor  politically  indebted  to  the  ward 
organization,  who  hands  over  bodily  the 
function  of  enforcing  the  law  —  concerning 
which  he  himself  is  and  must  be  to  a  large 
extent  ignorant  —  to  a  political  appointee 
at  the  head  of  the  police  department.  With 
the  simplification  of  the  processes  of  city 
government;  with  the  abolishing  of  the 
ward  and  the  ward  boss  and  the  ward  dele- 
gate in  the  nominating  conventions;  with 
the  substitution  of  nominations  and  elections 
by  the  people, —  not  of  the  mayor,  nor  of  the 
present  machinery  for  the  representation  of 
special  interests  in  city  government,  but 
of  men  to  act  as  department  heads,  nom- 
inated directly,  elected  directly,  and  held 
directly  responsible  to  the  people, —  the  or- 
ganization for  the  sale  of  dissipation  in  cities 
will  lose  its  present  control  in  city  adminis- 
tration, and  the  people  will  gain  it.  At  that 
time  the  will  of  the  people  —  whatever  it 
may  be  —  will  express  itself  in  city  govern- 
ment. There  will  be  an  end  to  the  present 
grotesque  and  alarming  spectacle  of  a  civil- 
ization which  is  stultifying  itself;  of  a  society 
which  enacts  and  desires  to  administer  laws, 
but  is  unable  to  do  so  because  of  the  control 
of  its  machinery  by  the  huge  financial  in- 
terests which  owe  their  very  existence  to  the 
sale  of  savagery. 


KfrRE 


'■'M 


